Disambiguating the ambiguity advantage effect in word recognition: An advantage for polysemous but not homonymous words

Journal of Neurolinguistics

Volumn 20, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 1-24

  Klepousniotou, Ekaterini ^a,b   Baum, Shari R ^a  

^a MCGILL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

^b MCGILL UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

Homonymy; Lexical ambiguity; Metaphor; Metonymy; Polysemy; Word recognition

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; AMBIGUITY; ARTICLE; CONTROLLED STUDY; DECISION MAKING; HUMAN; HUMAN EXPERIMENT; LANGUAGE ABILITY; LINGUISTICS; NORMAL HUMAN; PRIORITY JOURNAL; WORD RECOGNITION;

EID: 33751238507     PISSN: 09116044     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2006.02.001     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Apresjan J. Regular polysemy. Linguistics 142 (1974) 5-32
2. Azuma T., and Van Orden G.C. Why SAFE is better than FAST: The relatedness of a word's meanings affects lexical decision times. Journal of Memory and Language 36 (1997) 484-504
3. Beretta A., Fiorentino R., and Poeppel D. The effects of homonymy and polysemy on lexical access: An MEG study. Cognitive Brain Research 24 (2005) 57-65
4. Besner D., and Joordens S. Wrestling with ambiguity-Further reflections: Reply to Masson and Borowsky (1995) and Rueckl (1995). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 21 (1995) 515-519
5. Borowsky R., and Masson M.E.J. Semantic ambiguity effects in word identification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 22 (1996) 63-85
6. Copestake A., and Briscoe T. Semi-productive polysemy and sense extension. Journal of Semantics 12 (1995) 15-67
7. Cruse D.A. Lexical semantics (1986), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
8. Duffy S.A., Morris R.K., and Rayner K. Lexical ambiguity and fixation times in reading. Journal of Memory and Language 27 (1988) 429-446
9. Forster K.I., and Bednall E.S. Terminating and exhaustive search in lexical access. Memory and Cognition 4 (1976) 53-61
10. Francis W.N., and Kucera H. Frequency analysis of English usage: Lexicon and grammar (1982), Houghton Mifflin, Boston
11. Frazier L., and Rayner K. Taking on semantic commitments: Processing multiple meanings vs. multiple senses. Journal of Memory and Language 29 (1990) 181-200
12. Gaskell M.G., and Marslen-Wilson W.D. Integrating form and meaning: A distributed model of speech perception. Language and Cognitive Processes 12 (1997) 613-656
13. Gilhooly K.J., and Logie R.H. Meaning-dependent ratings of imagery, age of acquisition, familiarity, and concreteness for 387 ambiguous words. Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation 12 (1980) 428-450
14. Hino Y., and Lupker S.J. Effects of polysemy in lexical decision and naming: An alternative to lexical access accounts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 22 (1996) 1331-1356
15. Hinton G.E., and Shallice T. Lesioning an attractor network: Investigations of acquired dyslexia. Psychological Review 98 (1991) 74-95
16. Jastrzembski J.E. Multiple meanings, number of related meanings, frequency of occurrence, and the lexicon. Cognitive Psychology 13 (1981) 278-305
17. Joordens S., and Besner D. When banking on meaning is not (yet) money in the bank-Explorations in connectionist modelling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20 (1994) 1051-1062
18. Kawamoto A.H., Farrar W.T., and Kello C.T. When two meanings are better than one: Modelling the ambiguity advantage using a recurrent distributed network. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20 (1994) 1233-1247
19. Kellas G., Ferraro F.R., and Simpson G.B. Lexical ambiguity and the timecourse of attentional allocation in word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14 (1988) 601-609
20. Klein D.E., and Murphy G.L. The representation of polysemous words. Journal of Memory and Language 45 (2001) 259-282
21. Klein D.E., and Murphy G.L. Paper has been my ruin: Conceptual relations of polysemous senses. Journal of Memory and Language 47 (2002) 548-570
22. Klepousniotou E. The processing of lexical ambiguity: Homonymy and polysemy in the mental lexicon. Brain and Language 81 (2002) 205-223
23. Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics (Vol. 2), Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
24. Masson M.E.J. A distributed memory model of semantic priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 21 (1995) 3-23
25. Masson M.E.J., and Freedman L. Fluent identification of repeated words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 16 (1990) 355-373
26. McClelland J.L. The case for interactionism in language processing. In: Coltheart M. (Ed). Attention and performance XII: The psychology of reading (1987), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 3-36
27. McClelland J.L., and Rumelhart D.E. An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: Part 1. An account of basic findings. Psychological Review 88 (1981) 375-407
28. Mertus J. Brown lab interactive speech system [Computer software] (2000), Brown University, Providence, RI
29. Millis M.L., and Button S.B. The effect of polysemy on lexical decision time: Now you see it, now you don't. Memory and Cognition 17 (1989) 141-147
30. Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L. & Schreiber, T. A. (1998). The University of Florida word association, rhyme and word fragment norms. http://www.usf.edu/FreeAssociation/.
31. Nelson D.L., McEvoy C.L., Walling J.R., and Wheeler J.W. The University of South Florida homograph norms. Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentation 12 (1980) 16-37
32. Nunberg G. The non-uniqueness of semantic solutions: Polysemy. Linguistics and Philosophy 3 (1979) 143-184
33. Pexman P.M., and Lupker S.J. Ambiguity and visual word recognition: Can feedback explain both homophone and polysemy effects?. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology 53 (1999) 323-334
34. Piercey C.D., and Joordens S. Turning an advantage into a disadvantage: Ambiguity effects in lexical decision versus reading tasks. Memory & Cognition 28 (2000) 657-666
35. Pustejovsky J. The generative lexicon (1995), MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
36. Rayner K., and Duffy S.A. Lexical complexity and fixation times in reading: Effects of word frequency, verb complexity, and lexical ambiguity. Memory and Cognition 14 (1986) 191-201
37. Rayner K., and Frazier L. Selection mechanisms in reading lexically ambiguous words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 15 (1989) 779-790
38. Rodd J., Gaskell G., and Marslen-Wilson W. Making sense of semantic ambiguity: Semantic competition in lexical access. Journal of Memory and Language 46 (2002) 245-266
39. Rodd J.M., Gaskell M.G., and Marslen-Wilson W.D. Modelling the effects of semantic ambiguity in word recognition. Cognitive Science 28 (2004) 89-104
40. Rubenstein H., Garfield L., and Millikan J.A. Homographic entries in the internal lexicon. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 9 (1970) 487-494
41. Rumelhart D.E., and McClelland J.L. Interactive processing through spreading activation. In: Lesgold A.M., and Perfetti C.A. (Eds). Interactive processes in reading (1981), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates 37-60
42. Rumelhart D.E., and McClelland J.L. An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: Part 2. The contextual enhancement effect and some tests and extensions of the model. Psychological Review 89 (1982) 60-94
43. Seidenberg M.S., Tanenhaus M.K., Leiman J.M., and Bienkowski M. Automatic access of the meanings of ambiguous words in context: Some limitations of knowledge-based processing. Cognitive Psychology 14 (1982) 489-537
44. Swinney D.A. Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context effects. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 18 (1979) 645-659
45. Twilley L.C., Dixon P., Taylor D., and Clark K. University of Alberta norms of relative meaning frequency for 566 homographs. Memory and Cognition 22 (1994) 111-126
46. Williams J.N. Processing polysemous words in context: Evidence for interrelated meanings. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 21 (1992) 193-218
47. Yates J. Priming dominant and unusual senses of ambiguous words. Memory and Cognition 6 (1978) 636-643